Thread: This was the best kind of emotionally exhausting day. As the UC Regents were voting, I was keeping track.

I stopped when it got to 10 for and none against, and I knew it was going to happen.

It really was the culmination of a lot of emotion for me. Eleven years ago when I worked at DePaul and we became the largest private to go test-optional, we were out in front of a movement that had been happening at mostly SLACs.

We had done our research, and we were doing it for the right reason: We were afraid the students our mission compelled us to serve would be shut out as applications grew.

We were also naive.

The biggest supporters were people who knew the research, and who knew the troubling history of standardized testing.

The biggest critics? Idiots with megaphones. As I once told someone, "If you go test optional, get ready for the onslaught of stupid."

It was complicated for me. I was a great tester. Ever since the 3rd grade, when I took my first Iowa Test of Basic Skills, I've been in the top 5% of every standardized test I took.

But I was a mediocre student. And my parents had 8th grade educations.

So the tests led the teachers to think I was smart. I was put in advanced groups with genuinely smart kids who were good students. In short, I was the "Diamond in the Rough" the College Board likes to talk about when yanking on heart strings to make people like tests.

But of course, I knew a lot of kids who were actually smarter than I was, and better at school, who didn't test as well. They didn't get the promotions or the extra opportunities.

They were the flotsam and jetsam no one ever talks about.

And I thought that was wrong.

Over the years, we've made progress. A lot of it. But, as test optional critics point out, a lot of kids still apply with tests, because society still thinks they measure something important.

They don't.

They do measure something, but it's not clear if speed processing, and the ability to find the right answer is valuable in real life, when you don't get five possible answers, and it's often not even clear what the right question is.

But I guess, ceteris paribus, that it's a skill you'd rather have than not have.

And if private universities want to find students who are outstanding in the classroom and good on those tests, that's their right. I'd just never want to work at one.

Most students don't apply to those schools, however.

And public universities should be about something different. About 70% of students attend public universities, and at their best, they represent something really important.

Of course, lots of countries have public universities. Free ones, even. But many of those countries only grant admission to the very best; American universities are far more likely to be accessible to students who were not destined from birth to go to college.

As I did this visualization, I realized that the biggest and longest economic expansion in history started when access to higher education was opened to people who were not born presumptive college graduates. I was shocked by the numbers here. https://www.highereddatastories.com/2019/08/changes-in-educational-attainment-1940.html

And who are the ones in America currently not preordained to attend college? Students of color. Recent immigrants. Kids from poor families, who don't pay enough property taxes to build, staff, and fund superb schools.

The same ones hurt by tests.

I've often said that only in America can we talk about "good" public schools and "bad" public schools.

Isn't that absurd? Think about it for a bit.

Yes, it's absurd.

So today I thought a lot about this blogpost by @estherjcepeda which stung and still weighs heavily on my mind from time to time even eleven years later. https://www.estherjcepeda.com/600words/2011/09/depaul-dumbs-down-by-dropping-exams.html

And as the votes rolled in, and I set my pen down at 10-0, my eyes filled with tears. It's over. This is the beginning of the end. Damn it, I'm crying again. Right now.

It's for all the kids who will someday be great, and now have the opportunity to.

And it's for all the people who fought so hard for so long with such passion and conviction, even when shouted down by megaphones of the uninformed.

For @FairTestOffice and @AcceptGroup and the people at @BowdoinCollege and @BatesCollege

And for all the students in Oregon, who can now apply to any public university without tests. And the whole damn west coast of landgrants and flagships.

And, of course, for Norman Borlaug.

And especially for the young people at @stu_voice who are relatively new to this, but who give me great hope for the future, not just of education, but the country. We salute you. Well done. Keep going.

Oh, and #EMTalk